Continuity Nod - TV Tropes

Nothing is so sympathetic as a sad clown— except for the people he left homeless.

"Coincidentally, 17 is the same number of times I helped prevent prostate cancer today. By the way, that's a throwback to last week's episode. Our regular viewers have been rewarded for their loyalty. Thanks, mom!"

— Lex Friedman, Cracked.com's The Week in Douchebaggery May 2nd 2008

A Continuity Nod is a minor reference to some aspect of a series' continuity or an event within the shared universe. It is distinct from a Call-Back and a Call-Forward in that it does not drive or foreshadow any actual plot development; it's more of a hat-tilt to fans that pick up on little details. Here's an example of the difference between all the tropes:

Continuity Nod: "You remember those martial arts lessons you took before? Okay, cool. Let's get back to baking."
Call-Back: "You remember those martial arts lessons you took before? It should come in handy to take down these mooks!"
Call-Forward: "These mooks are overwhelming us! Too bad you don't know martial arts!"

Compare with Continuity Cavalcade, an unusually large number of Continuity Nods all at once, Continuity Porn, an excessive use of Continuity Nods to the point of being distracting, and an Internal Homage, a whole scenario from a past story is recreated. Contrast with Series Continuity Error and Discontinuity Nod, where the continuity is either accidentally or intentionally invalidated, respectively. If a Continuity Nod comes back and becomes a Call-Back, that may be Chekhov's Boomerang.

Once Done, Never Forgotten and Remember When You Blew Up a Sun? are Sub Tropes. Oblivious Mockery is also a subtrope when the viewer knows about the action being mocked.

Remember, it's only this if the events happen in the same continuity. Otherwise, it's a Mythology Gag.

Example subpages:

Other examples:

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Asian Animation

BoBoiBoy: In Season 2 episode 6, when Probe asks if he's ever steered Adu Du wrong, Adu Du mentions Probe having sold their ship for an electric spatula, which occurred in Season 1.
Probe: [laughs nervously] ...He still remembers that?
Happy Friends: In Season 2 episode 20, Little M., upon encountering the bottle genie, thinks he's the wishing wood. In episode 35 of Season 1, the heroes find a wish-granting piece of wood with a similar appearance to the bottle genie.
Lamput:
- There is an episode called "Alien Again" where Skinny Doc is mistaken for an extraterrestrial. The episode title is referencing how it isn't the only Alien Episode in the show; the previous season has an episode simply called "Alien" which also involves the docs being caught up with aliens of some sort.
- In "Giant Lamput", the sea monster in the movie the doc robot interrupts is the same one from the earlier episode "Everyone Needs Friends" from the same season.
Little Cherry: In Season 2 Episode 7, prior to the debate competition, Lazy reminds Cherry not to make the mistakes she fell for while opening their Children's Day show act, which is from Season 1 Episode 10.
Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf:
- In Joys of Seasons episode 26, Night Wolf tells Wolffy he owes him one after the latter captures Weslie, Paddi, Tibbie, and Sparky. He then says "Remember the pancake incident?", referencing episode 21 of the same season where Wolffy flies to the pancake moon and tries to eat it into the shape of a heart for Wolnie after Night Wolf's wife, Fragrant Wolf, tells him she wants the moon.
- In the fourth film, when Weslie and Wolffy are trapped under tons of debris after defeating the giant metallic dragon, Wolffy asks Weslie if he can take a bite out of him since he's traveled a desert and explored the moon, referencing the previous two films in the series (in the second film, an amusement park built over Goat Village uses up enough energy that it dries up the surrounding area and creates a desert that Weslie and Wolffy have to traverse, and in the third film the gang goes to the moon to defeat the Bitter Gourd King).
- In Mighty Little Defenders episode 58, Wolfram molds a mud figure into the shape of Wolffy... in the art style of Pleasant Goat Fun Class.
- The season Dunk for Victories has a few. First of all, Weslie's team is called Team Defenders, a nod to an earlier season, Mighty Little Defenders. At the beginning of episode 1, it said that the episode takes place after the season Against the Dark Force. In episode 7, the golden cake that Slowy uses to lure Paddi into his basketball team was made by Aunt Merry from the season Paddi the Amazing Chef.
Simple Samosa:
- In the first English version of "Jalebi's Birthday", before Jalebi helps Vada up a non-functioning escalator, Jalebi assures him that she's got the experience to do so and mentions "I even saved the life of that fly" as an example. This is referring to the events of the earlier episode "Makkhi Makkhi!", where a fly gets stuck on Jalebi's sticky head. The second English dub replaces this reference, instead having her mention she once saved a lifeguard.
- In "Kakaki Kabaddi", Samosa wears his Banana Fontana outfit from the episode "Banana Fontana", and Dhokla wears his Doctor D outfit from the episode "Doctor D", both to disguise themselves from a group of townsfolk who are chasing after them.

Audio Plays

At the end of the Blakes Seven full-cast audio "Warship", as Blake's life capsule drifts away from the Liberator he laughs and murmurs, like he did in another pilot episode many years ago, "Oh no... I'm coming back."
Sonic and Tails R:
- At the start of the first episode, Tails shows off the 7th Chaos Emerald to Sonic and notes that he came across it during one of his test flights - just like he did near the beginning of Sonic Adventure.
Sonic: Some things never change.
- When Knuckles declines to help out the duo due to his duties as guardian, Tails decides to use the jewel radar from the Japanese manual of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 to find the shards instead.

Comic Strips

In early Dilbert strips, the now infamous Pointy-Haired Boss did not have pointy hair at all, but rather just an ordinary, receding hairline of black curly hair. A 1995 strip depicting the slow decline of Dilbert's health benefits, via a series of flashbacks, depicts the boss with his old, unpointy hair.
In one Garfield strip from 1983, Jon buys a frog he names Herbie, Garfield soon becomes jealous and eats him when Jon leaves the room, much later in a Halloween strip from 1994 a group of ghosts of animals he had previously eaten come to haunt him, one of them is Herbie.
- Sometimes, Garfield can't sleep. He thinks it was November 8, 1992. That day's strip features Garfield being unable to sleep because of the night noises.

Creators

Pixar frequently references past productions, from shorts (Luxo Jr.'s ball and lit bulb in the logo sequence are a frequent sight) to movies (the Pizza Planet truck being the most blatant example).

Pinball

In Monopoly, every player starts with $1,500. The pinball adaptation translates this to each player having 1,500 points at the beginning of the game.
Williams Electronics' "rollercoaster" game Cyclone, a sequel to Comet, includes the "Comet" in the game.
- Hurricane, the second sequel, also includes the "Comet" in the game. Furthermore, the backglass shows two riders wearing "Comet" and "Cyclone" T-shirts.
The backglass for Tales from the Crypt shows the Crypt Keeper reading an issue of the original EC Comics' Tales from the Crypt comic book.

Podcasts

In The Hidden Almanac, episode 38 records that in 1781, the Librarian Prince forbade the use of numberical placings in contests, leaving people to come up with workarounds such as "color-coded ribbons, Honorablest Mentions, and the 'We're Extremely Glad You Participated Award'". In episode 40, an item about sheep breeding mentions that in 1783 a ram named Sturdy took the "Exceedingly Honorable-We-Really-Mean-It Award" at the city fair.
In the "Podcast/Relative Disasters" episode on the Donner Party, the fraudulent guidebook causes the hosts to reference the fraudulent guidebook of the Poyais scam which they'd talked about in an earlier episode.

Pro Wrestling

Tito Santana and Rick Martel had teamed together in 1987 as "Strike Force" and then they broke up violently, the feud lasting the rest of their careers, even when they weren't actively feuding.
ECW fans had fun mocking Raven by reminding him of his former Johnny Polo and Scotty The Body gimmicks. The change to Raven was explained by Scotty becoming depressed.
Throughout the Attitude Era, the WWF gave us a subtle Continuity Nod on a weekly basis, in the form of Chyna's nickname, "The Ninth Wonder of the World". You may be saying, "Wait, aren't there only seven wonders?" Yes, but in the '70s and '80s, the WWF billed André the Giant as "The Eighth Wonder of the World", and thus Chyna was next in line after him.
- And Zack Ryder was in line after her, as he was recently called "The Tenth Wonder of the World".
The WWF shows from October '99 to around August '00 paid a greater attention to continuity than usual thanks to the efforts of then head writer, the late Chris Kreski. Kreski made a habit of extensively storyboarding everything and keeping continuity charts. One specific continuity nod sticks out in a world where allegiances are constantly changing and old ones are often ignored. Shortly before Kreski took over, Summerslam '99 saw the climax of the feud between Test and Shane McMahon over Test deserving the love of Shane's sister Stephanie McMahon. Test won a "Love Her or Leave Her" match and the next night on Raw, Shane told him he was the better man and that they should be friends from then on. After Kreski took over, and even for a long time after Stephanie turned heel on her family and Test to marry Triple H, Test had Shane's back whenever he was needed.
Delirious tends to slip in references to his partners and rivals from his starting promotion, Gateway Championship Wrestling, wherever he goes, such as using Matt Sydal's "Here It Is!" to defeat the supposedly titanic sized Hydra in Chikara. It might have to do with GCW's Diabolic Khaos stable bleeding into IWA Mid-South but commentator Dave Prazak will call any move Delirious is known for by the appropriate Name of Power if he sees MsChif perform it.
Jazz would sometimes wear a shirt reading "Where My Doggs At" in reference to her husband's tag team in Ohio Valley Wrestling with Shelton Benjamin, The Dogg Pound. She wrestle with a red bandana on too because "Redd Dogg" Rodney Mack also would.
Bob Holly's match in OVW with Matt Cappotelli is became famous for unintended reasons as it progressed but before that happened, Jim Cornette made sure to mention Bob's cousin Molly would be taking on Jillian Hall.
Women Superstars Uncensored likes to pretend that the company started in 2006/7 but has several call backs to their Wrestling Superstars days when they weren't an all women's promotion, most obviously the recurring Queen And King Of The Ring tournament but there are quite a few less obvious reminders, such as commentator Monsta Mack, who used to wrestle for them before the transition.
Pro Wrestling NOAH billed Samoa Joe as a TNA wrestler during his runs there but the commentators weren't shy to reference Joe's time in Ring of Honor, which had quite a few inter promotional events with NOAH while Joe was face of the company.
Angelina Love's tattoos and ring gear contain symbolism and visual artifacts from her old Angel Williams/Canadian Angel gimmicks and when she goes back to those gimmicks, her gear tends to reference her TNA time as Love.
Inter promotional example, and a rare one considering it involved WWE but Primo Colon's instant hostility toward Curt Hawkins and Zach Ryder upon the announcement that they were members of "La Familia" would go over the heads of most people who don't speak Spanish and just confuse those who do, unless they also watched WWC, where "La Familia" was one of the promotion's most dominant power stables, whom Eddie (Primo) and Carlito were opposed to.
After Madison Rayne "killed" Roxxi Laveaux's TNA career, she started using the Barbie Crusher, best known as Roxxi's Finishing Move.
Subverted by WWE firing the continuity editor when he pointed out too many issues and never hiring a new one.
These days, WWE doesn't tend to make Continuity Nods referring to incidents from more than half a decade ago (see Fleeting Demographic Rule). This tendency does not apply to appearances by or even casual mentions of Legends (WWE Superstars who are no longer with the company but are still widely remembered), who will often be referenced by younger commentators who weren't even born when they were in their heyday! One commentator casually mentioned Sky Low Low - a midget wrestler whom very few fans over the age of 40 are even aware existed!
WWE either intentionally does this (such as HHH never referring to his loss to The Undertaker at WrestleMania 17 during promos for their fight at 27) or completely forgets about some stuff because they weren't important enough at the time. CM Punk reportedly had to remind the writers during his feud with Randy Orton that he was jumped by Orton and his stable in Unforgiven 2008, making him lose without even entering his title match, and thus giving him a pretty valid reason to go after Orton for Wrestlemania 27.
While contracted to IWA Puerto Rico, Black Rose would make occasional appearances as an audience member on the shows of their main rival WWC to cheer on her old managerial client Bronco #1. Usually this kind of behavior is frowned upon in professional wrestling, as Austin Aries can tell you about Ring of Honor and TNA, but in Rose's case and exception was made because she began as an audience member on WWC's weekend shows that Bronco's Tag Team partner Rico Suave had repeatedly dared try professional wrestling until he finally decided he wasn't taking "no" for an answer.
In a world where most storylines disappear after three months, it took Randy Orton years to get over Evolution's betrayal, a moment which is generally agreed to be his Start of Darkness, transforming him from the suave "Legend Killer" to the cold and sadistic "Viper." This is evident because it became the standing reason for Randy's hatred of Triple H (and to a lesser extent, Batista), extending the grudge all the way to 2009, a full four years after the stable had long since dissolved. Evolution also left its mark on Randy in another ways, most notably in Randy's own Power Stable Legacy, an imitation of Evolution, except with Randy taking Triple H's place as The Centerpiece, in order to keep on a stranglehold on the WWE Championship, much like how Hunter did with Evolution and the World Heavyweight Championship. It's only in recent years that Randy has been able to get over it in order to ally himself with The Authority. This extends to Orton's relationship with other superstars. Besides the aforementioned CM Punk example, many of his former rivals make it no secret that they still hate him regardless of current alignments. This was most noticeable with John Cena, whose feud with Randy was the most personal in recent years, arguably even more personal than Triple H's and Shawn Michaels circa '02-'04. Regardless of their alignments, anything that puts them in even the slightest bit of conflict pushes them to the verge of feuding again.
On WWE NXT season 2, Kaval made mention of his encounters with Eddie Guerrero in Impact Championship Wrestling back when he was known as Low Ki. Also, during one of the "challenges" which usually showed "talents" beyond those that related to pro wrestling, Kaval cut a rap which ended with the worlds "Total Nonstop Action", where he had also wrestled before.
Kane gives us one in the form of a delightful speech about his past while in an anger management class on the 8/27/12 edition of Raw. Hilarity Ensues.
"I grew up locked in a basement, suffering severe psychological and emotional scarring when my brother set my parents on fire. From there, I shifted around among a series of mental institutions until I was grown, at which point I buried my brother alive ... twice. Since then, I've set a couple of people on fire and abducted various co-workers. Oh, and I, uh, once electrocuted a man's testicles. Years ago, I had a girlfriend named Katie but let's just say that didn't turn out too well. My real father is a guy named Paul Bearer, who I recently trapped in a meat locker. I've been married, divorced, broke up my ex-wife's wedding and tombstoned the priest. And, for reasons never quite explained, I have an unhealthy obsession with torturing Pete Rose."
In Ring Of Honor, "Touched" by VAST was among the entrance themes AJ Styles used until he was pulled out of the promotion by TNA. When Style's TNA contract was up and he could return to ROH without their restriction, "Demi Gods" by LabRats became his theme, which wasn't just a remix of "Touched" but also a song about the forming of a team, which of course is a nod to the fact he joined Bullet Club in the interim. Also, Styles took up the Bloody Sunday maneuver of former club leader, "Prince" Fergal Devitt, who was forced out of the group and New Japan Pro-Wrestling but amicably as possible.
MVP's "investor in TNA" gimmick is a nod to his "highest paid free agent in all of "sports entertainment" gimmick on Smackdown. His director of wrestling operations role is a nod to TNA becoming an affiliate of the World Wrestling League, where former TNA agent/booker/whatever Savio Vega really was directing such operations.
During Bobby Lashley's first TNA Heavyweight Title run, Bobby Roode asking if his real passion was pro wrestling or MMA might have seemed like a cheap plug for Lashely also fighting in Bellator at the time, unless one remembered Lashley's previous TNA run ended with his wife trying to get him to quit TNA because she was being harassed by Scott Steiner and said no one ever bothered her during his MMA matches.
Cody Rhodes's "Stardust" gimmick wasn't just putting himself more in line with tag team partner Goldust but a nod to one of his father's red barons.
In 1992 (taped 1991), Shawn Michaels betrayed Marty Jannetty by kicking him in the jaw and smashing him through a glass object. In 2008, Chris Jericho betrayed Shawn Michaels by beating the hell out of him and smashing him through a glass object. In 2017, Kevin Owens betrayed Chris Jericho by savagely beating him down and smashing him through a glass object. In 2023, Jacy Jayne betrayed Gigi Dolin savagely kicking her down and smashing her through the Ding Dong, Hello! door, which was not made of glass.

Radio

The Navy Lark:
- In "The Morning After", CPO Pertwee scares Johnson off by threatening him with another diet, which he had forced on him earlier in Series 2 in "Johnson's Diet".
- Series 2's finale, "The Portarneyland Fishing Limit", has two:
  - Lieutenant Murray remarks to the Admiral, "I'm none too sure Intelligence knows we've got Troutbridge, sir", alluding to how Commander Bracewell was under the misunderstanding that Troutbridge wasn't Royal Navy property in "Johnson's Diet".
  - At the party, CPO Pertwee makes a drunken Commander Povey read the same dreadful recitation he made him read in "Strike Up the Band". Old Thunderguts tries to remind him but ends up reading it all the same.
- In "Refitting Ebenezer Pertwee", CPO Pertwee asks Johnson if his mum, Min, was sloshing up Humgrummit soup when he was on leave with him, leave which Johnson had invited Pertwee along to at the end of "The Portarneyland Fishing Limit".
- When Lieutenant Murray tells Sir Willoughby that Troutbridge will fire a salute to him as they leave the Island in "Sir Willoughby Takes Over the Island", Sir Willoughby urges them to fire to sea this time, as last time they had fired right through his wickerwork seat. This incident happened the first time the Troutbridge lot met Sir Willoughby, in "Gunboat to Goomba".
- In "Povey's Unexpected Leave", Sub-Lieutenant Phillips tells Captain Povey his wallpaper looks like the dress that Ramona wore at the last party. In the previous episode, "Johnson's Birthday", the Admiral had told Ramona her dress looked like wallpaper.
- After Lieutenant Murray promised Goldstein a Rank Up to Leading Seaman in "Onabushkan Flu", three episodes later, Goldstein asks the Number One for an update on it in "The Hitch-Hiking Counterfeiter".
- In "CPO Pertwee and the Laundry", Mr. Phillips mentions his brother Cedric plays centre-forward on the football pitch. Dear old Ceedy had previously visited him a few episodes earlier in "Families' Day".
- Two in "Stuck on a Sandbank":
  - While on the phone with Intelligence, Heather recalls his name is "Able Seaman Bright", which he previously told her in "Chasing the Kepeac".
  - As he's going to the train station with Johnson, CPO Pertwee asks if his mum, Min, still makes her Floggle-Toggle cake. Pertwee's love for Min's Floggle-Toggle cake was established way back in "New at the Helm".
- In "Smugglers in the Solent", Admiral Ffont-Bittocks asks Captain Povey if his rank has been substantiated yet, a nod to the trouble Old Thundeguts had in "Confirming Povey's Rank" one series earlier.
- Heather angrily calls Sub-Lieutenant Phillips "Octopus Paws" in "Mr Murray is Victimised", the same nickname all the Wrens were mentioned to have for him in "Confirming Povey's Rank". She later tells Veronica of this nickname after she learns he is taking her out on a date in "The Mysterious Radio Signals", while First Officer Puce calls him by the name one final time in "Commander Murray Becomes a Showjumper".
- At the start of "Captain Povey Reports Sick", announcer Robin Boyle recalls all the fifteen-sided nuts the listeners sent him last series in "Stuck on a Sandbank".
- Captain Povey references Heather and CPO Pertwee's fling in the second half of Series 7 in "The Police Drop In":
  Captain Povey: Yeah, I don't still understand a word of it...
  Heather: Oh, but it's simple, sir — a villain an' his bird have turned over the central museum an' lifted a bundle. Now, some narc has grassed that they've had it away in a boat to France, an' the fuzz wants us to get one of our lot to feel their collars and shove them in the local nick.
  Captain Povey: (Beat) Have you been going out with CPO Pertwee again?
  Heather: No, sir, but I do watch an awful lot of television.
- In "The Radio Beacon", Captain Povey tells Heather that whatever scheme Nunkie's up to, CPO Pertwee will be involved with too, reminding her of the floating mobile fish 'n' chip shop they worked on together in "A Fishy Business".
- When angling for a promotion in "Pertwee Climbs Up the Promotion Ladder", CPO Pertwee puts on the same faux-posh voice he used the last time he wanted a promotion in "The Struggle for Promotion".
- In "The Anniversary and the Washing", Ramona complains that Captain Povey had worn his father's suit to their wedding, which she first complained about back in "The Surprise Wedding". Adding to this, a few episodes later, Captain Povey offers to wear his father's suit if he is chosen to be Commander Murray's best man in "Number One Gets Married".
- In "The Mark 31 Radar", Intelligence asks Heather if she'll be washing her hair if he asks her out on Friday — just what she had told him in his last appearance in "The Forbodians Hijack Troutbridge".
- Discussing The Master in "The Master of Sardinia", Sub-Lieutenant Phillips recalls how he taught him navigation which ended up sinking his hydrofoil back in "Number One's Married Quarters".
- Captain Povey auditions for It's Your Opportunity Knockers in "Opportunity Knockers" with his farmyard impressions, which he had been established to be a big fan of last series in "Impressions for Survival". He brings up his impressions one final time in "Sidney and the Stamp" when he bores a Ministry of Defence official by talking about them and then does them to an annoyed Heather.
- Meeting CPO Pertwee in "The New NAAFI", Professor Clark tells him that his cousin Peregrine from the Ministry of Defence sends his worst. Lieutenant Peregrine Pertwee appeared in the last series during a phone call in "The Slogan Contest".
- After Sub-Lieutenant Phillips mentions he had wrecked his Mickey Mouse watch in "The POW Escape Exercise", he replaced it with a Donald Duck watch. One series later in "Kangaroo Polka", he complains to CPO Pertwee and Commander Murray that he still hasn't heard back from Disneyland about getting it fixed.
- When Commander Murray is having marriage problems in "Helen, The New Wren", he goes to the Padre for advice, remembering that he was the one to marry him and Rita back in "Number One Gets Married".
- Heather's going-away present in "Sidney and the Stamp" is a snap of Captain Povey nodding off in a deckchair on the beach at Broadstairs taken by Ramona — a nod to how they went on leave there back in "The Anti-Submarine Missile".

Tabletop Games

In both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000, references are usually sprinkled around for fans to find referring to all manner of things from the previous editions that may have been forgotten about, passed over or deliberately retconned. For example, in the Grey Seer novel for Warhammer Fantasy, Grey Seer Thanquol makes a passing mention to the "blasphemous Kweekul", referring to the 2nd edition "Realms of Chaos" sourcebooks, during the time of which Skaven were actually part of the Chaos forces, and specifically referring to a Skaven Daemon Prince used to highlight the "design a Chaos God" rules. Similarly, the 7th edition Warriors of Chaos sourcebook mentions Lothar Bubonicus and Werner Thunderfist, two Chaos Champions (Nurgle and Tzeentch respectively) who each ascended to Daemonhood. Both of them were warbands played by the writers of White Dwarf (1977), and their progress was shown in issue #124.
- A rules related version crops up in the 8th edition High Elves book. In earlier editions (5th and before) the High Elves general could be decided by a random dice roll, due to politics deciding who was in charge (the rule was called Intrigue at Court). In later books, this rules was removed by the fluff still makes mention to generals being decided by politics, and states that this is usually overriden by the Phoenix King.
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Given that the setting takes place after the world of Warhammer Fantasy, it's only fitting that at times references are made to the Old World.
- All of the god-characters have their origins in the Old World, and their rivalries and conflicts from there will occasionally be referenced/influence their decisions.
- Stormcast armour is forged from Sigmarite, a metal only found in the core of Mallus, the World-That-Was.
Planet Hoppers: Beheboth: Blood and Water, an article/story written for Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars d20, revisits characters from Star Wars (Marvel 1977), including one Sergeant Malka. In an obvious nod to a much more recent story, Darial mistakenly refers to him as "Malak" at one point.
Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Sphere of Chaos's name and effect is a reference to a trio of monsters often called "The Chaos Trio", consisting of "Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning", "Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End", and "Chaos Sorcerer", who needed a LIGHT and DARK Monster to summon.
- The Sage of Necloth is clearly an aged Gishki Avance, with the same stats.
- The Necloth of Trishula has the same effect and stats as the original Trishula.
- Elder of the Spirit Beast Tamers is an older Kamui, Hope of Gusto.
- The Spirit Beast Tamers are Psychic-type, just like all of the human Gusto monsters.
- Just like the Dragunity and Gusto before them, their extra deck monsters consist of a rider and their steed.

Theatre

In The Drowsy Chaperone, the Man in Chair mentions that actress Ukulele Lil probably played the ukulele, "although she doesn't in this show." And then she does at the very end, which is technically outside the Show Within a Show.

Theme Parks

During the line to get in The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios, various clips from The Simpsons are shown on TVs. One of them is a clip of Doc Brown from Back to the Future selling the rights to the time travel compound to Professor Frink.

Visual Novels

Ace Attorney has a number of these.
- Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth goes out of its way to never specifically describe any cases in the first three games, probably to avoid spoiling it for people who play Investigations first, but the continuity nods are everywhere for the older fans. A major example is that flashback Manfred von Karma goes from ambiguously creepy to chillingly terrifying if you know that he murdered Miles Edgeworth's father. If you inspect Edgeworth's flashback to the moment in the elevator, you can even pick out the second bullet hole in the wall where Miles accidentally shot von Karma in the shoulder.
- One occurs in The Monstrous Turnabout in Dual Destinies, which features a photo capturing a supposed flying killer. This is the fourth time the series has used the "supposed flying murderer" plot point. When Apollo points out the possibility of a flying murderer in court, the Judge's reaction is a sarcastic "I can't wait to hear this".
Anonymous;Code:
- The first thing to appear after the opening theme is the Divergence Meter from Steins;Gate, with 1.048596% (the Golden Ending) being superpositioned with 1.123581% (featured in Steins;Gate 0). An upgraded Divergence Meter physically appears in Chapter 4, though isn't explored in detail.
- Liddie Kumar and Makise Kurisu worked together at Viktor Chondria University, with Kent Korihisa also being Kurisu's acquaintance. Liddie tells Kurisu had some sort of experience with Time Travel, but has been focusing on neuroscience.
- Pollon abuses Mental Time Travel to win MINI Loto just like Okabe did.
- The fourth top ranking hacker to attempt Cicada 3301 quests is DaSH, which stands for Daru the SuperHacker, while Frau Koujiro is 7th.
- John Titor's posts about Time Travel and You Can't Fight Fate are brought up when speculating about Pollon's ability.
- One of the anonymous chat messages mentions KuriGohan. The only one who knows who that is should be Okabe.
- Amadeus System plays a role as an example of an Artificial Human made from data, and Amadeus Kent and Amadeus Kurisu appear in the later half, with the latter bringing up how she's heard of an individual who tried to Screw Destiny. It was also said the project had rought development because of a mysterious hack in 2012 believed to be Kent stealing the project for himself, along with several attempts of security breach by foreign agencies.
- One of the chat messages compares Momo giving the world superpowers to the Gigalomania incident.
Canvas 2 has multiple references to the original game and several of the heroines, mostly in Misaki and Saya's routes. Both of them are sisters of heroines from the original.
Danganronpa does this a lot, but chapter 3 of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony has two particularly notable examples. A key plot point in the case is the use of a katana covered with gold paint that comes off easily, referencing a weapon used in the first case of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Later, during the trial, the possibility is brought up that the killer stabbed someone through the floorboards, which may have had glow in the dark paint on them, referencing the cause of death in the first case of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. When either of these things are brought up in the trial, Monokuma comments on how both ideas sound familiar.
In Fate/stay night, Kotomine remarks offhandedly about how Tohsaka will feel much better after being buried underground for a bit amidst a conversation that skims along the topic of vampires. Shirou isn't sure whether to take the comment literally or seriously. This little conversation gave rise to some Epileptic Trees suggesting that Tohsaka is the descent of a vampire.
In Hatoful Boyfriend sequel Holiday Star, the human girl is friends with The Conductor, implicitly from all the bad ends in the previous game. She even says they've known each other since the demo version!
The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty: Liang Chapter 11 has a heartwarming moment where Liang and Sui invite the other three girls to watch a shadow play. At the end of the show, Sui says they now really felt like a theatre troupe. Previously, being a theatre troupe which was just a lie they made up to deflect suspicion from the soldiers passing by.
Shikkoku no Sharnoth makes numerous passing references to Sekien no Inganock including mentioning the city of Inganock itself and a Runner known as David, who was a minor character there.
Spirit Hunter: NG:
- While the game has many notable ties to its predecessor Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, there's also a few inconsequential references put in for fun:
  - Momo's gravure photo has her made up like a doll and posing on a red couch, with it being based on an urban legend about 'a doll in a mysterious mansion'. This is all a reference to Mary, the protagonist's advisor from Death Mark.
  - When Akira asks Kaoru what he could be, if not a human, one of her answers is a humanoid weapon that was developed in secret by the old army. This is exactly what the Kannon Soldier from Chapter 5 of Death Mark is.
  - One of Natsumi's notebooks contains information on the scar-like Death Mark that plagued the characters of the titular game. Kaoru explains that she knew someone involved with the case, and that she took much of her inspiration for Momo Kuruse from it.
  - When explaining the Miroku Mansion's Bizarrchitecture, Rosé references roads and staircases that impossibly loop you back to the same spot, which were featured in Chapters 3 and 6 of Death Mark.
  - According to Ami's profile, she once talked to a dog with a human face, a reference to Genta from the third chapter of Death Mark.
- One of D-Man's cards tells the tale of the Princess Mach urban legend. If Ban is alive at the end of the game, then his epilogue scene mentions that he's investigating the very same spirit.

Web Animation

13 Cards:
- Clones Make A Comic: Fëdor's book has been taped together, since it was destroyed in Clones Clean Up The House.
- Clones In The Soup: The "gorgonzola" that Romeo used in the soup is the same cheese that Fëdor threw back in the fridge in Clones Make A Comic because it stunk.
Battle for Dream Island:
- When Book and Pillow join Naily's team in TPOT 1, Book is happy to see Bomby there, recalling the days they spent cranking the HPHPRCC in BFDIA. She also brings Nickel onto the team, as he cranked alongside them.
- In TPOT 4, Golf Ball's team has to protect a funny plant in Davidland. She reminds Fries of the time they went through Davidland in BFDIA, warning him that they must not insult David or else their plant will die.
Homestar Runner has absolutely massive amounts of these. The most minor characters will pop up in various places, turns of phrase and vocabulary items will be thrown around in completely different contexts, objects from previous cartoons will make appearances elsewhere for little reason. At its greatest, a one-off joke will come back so much that it becomes a much larger part of the website, such as the band Limozeen. All you need to do is go to the Homestar Runner Wiki, find a cartoon's page and look at inside references, where each Continuity Nod, Shout-Out, and Mythology Gag will be documented in precise detail.
The Misadventures of R2 and Miku has a surprising amount of these, despite liberally employing the Snap Back:
- Miku eating a squirrel in "R2 and Miku Stuck in a Treehouse" leads to her getting sick in "Disease".
- "Clones" ends with Miku realizing she's come back from death before, citing her death in the treehouse and murder by the cow from two prior episodes.
- "The Chimp" opens with Miku laying despondently in bed, leading R2 to assume she got sick like in "Disease".
- Upon seeing a depressed Miku in "Miku Hits R2 with a Chair", GLaDOS asks if she's still sad over Croatia's loss in The World Cup (as was the case in "The Chimp"). At the end, R2 hears about a "pizza delivery cow" and immediately makes the connection to the one that shot him dead in "Disease"; Miku's failure to connect the dots ends up proving fatal once more.
Red vs. Blue:
- When Grif somehow revived Sarge from a gunshot wound he was chastised for how random that treatment was and Sarge ask if he would have treated a shot in the foot by rubbing aloe vera on his neck. When Grif talks to Doc a while later, a (not very good) medic, Doc tells Grif that he made the right decision and states that he just treated Caboose's gunshot wound in the foot by rubbing aloe vera on his neck (then his toe fell off).
- In Recreation, Grif gets in the cockpit for a large vehicle and asks 'Why are there only four pedals if there's six directions?', the exact opposite of what Caboose asked when he first piloted his team's tank in season 1. There are sometimes several continuity nods per episode, though many are of the "blink and you'll miss it" variety.
- In the Project Freelancer Saga flashbacks, Carolina ends up having to attach her grappling hook to Washington's codpiece to get him onto their escape ship. In season 11, he admits that that moment was what he was known for among his group.
In Charlie the Unicorn 3, having been through everything else the cartoon is going to throw at him, at least he finds that kidney they stole back in the first one.
This fan work for Watchmen is filled with nods toward the original graphic novel, from Rorsachs' "love of animals" to the scene where the comedian falls out of a window.
The Leet World: In "Satisfaction Guaranteed", Player has something of an obsession with a snowman's hat. In the second season, the same hat can be seen in the intro sequence.
In BrainPOP's Fractions episode, many of the robots from other videos on the site, such as Little Jimmy and the Cycloids from the Capitalization video and the Hillbot from the Country Music video, show up at Moby's birthday party.
Ultra Fast Pony: "Shameless Self Reference" is packed with references to prior episodes, complete with hyperlinks to the relevant episode. The Stinger from the season one finale references the first two episodes, with Night Moon Mare showing up from nowhere to deliver her catchphrase, "Saaaaaaaaaaaaand!"
Breeze Rider references the opening of Dusk's Dawn when the group approaches the castle.
The main character of Petera Dzive, after having taken a photo of himself with a drunk, passed out naked man, keeps the photo on the wall of his room in future episodes.
The creators of The Most Popular Girls in School and Dr. Havoc's Diary just love making sure that the viewers never forget all the crazy shit that has happened in previous episodes. Even if it means having to go way back to reference the very first episodes.
RWBY:
- In Volume 1, Episode 15, Weiss mentions that an entire train of her family's Dust shipments had been stolen by the White Fang. The Black trailer involved Blake and Adam pulling a heist on a train with cargo that had the Schnee logo.
- In Volume 2, Chapter 2, Team RWBY is playing a board game where each player controls army that attempts to conquer the world. Weiss's army consists of knight figurines that look just like the knight she fought in the White Trailer.
- During the last few seconds of "Worthy" , Volume 8's penultimate episode, one of the Grimm seen attacking the refugees is a Ravager, a Grimm first featured in the novel RWBY: After the Fall.
- During the events of "Tea Amidst Terrible Trouble" when Ruby enters the mansion created by Neopolitan, pictures of a young girl with her parents can be seen. These are pictures of Trivia Vanille, Neopolitan's original identity and her parents Jimmy and Carmel Vanille who she eventually killed in the climax of the novel RWBY: Roman Holiday.
In the Star Trek Logical Thinking video about the Ipse Dixit (it simply is) fallacy, Harry Mudd mentions being defeated by his own androids, which happened in an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series.
Anon: Chelsea and Tucker take a photo in a photobooth of them kissing, which ends up on Chelsea's wall for the remaining four seasons before the timeskip. After the timeskip, Candace, their daughter, has her own photobooth picture with her boyfriend Ryan.
Spooky Month: In the attic scene in "Deadly Smiles", Lila hides behind the portrait of her and Skid's dad that was hung up on the wall in "It's spooky month", now with Skid's dad's face torn out.
The Robotbox and Cactus episode "Brentwood Academy" has Ben Patagopolis saying "the moon" in a hushed whisper with an extreme close-up of his mouth. This oddly dramatic way of framing someone saying "the moon" returns in episode 38, "Back in Time", where Crazy Legs warns of the government's plans to go to "the moon" in the same manner.
Sonic × Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings:
- Episode 1:
  - After Shadow has a nightmare re-experiencing some of his most traumatic memories, he gazes up at the moon and the ARK. The moon still has a chunk blown out of it, acknowledging for the first time in a long while how it was partially destroyed by the Eclipse Cannon in Sonic Adventure 2. As a consequence of the moon having not been repaired since, there is an orbiting ring of debris around it.
  - Emerl only uses a Spin Dash after Shadow hits him with it, which alludes to his Power Copying ability in 'Sonic Battle'' and how he needs to observe the opponent first. Emerl's basic fighting combos from the game are also used, with his abilities improving and matching Shadow's as he fights.
- Episode 2:
  - Shadow raids Hidden Base for a space shuttle to the ARK. Hidden Base had a shuttle that flew Sonic and his friends to the ARK in Sonic Adventure 2. However, there are no longer any ships there, so Rouge gets him to hijack a G.U.N. vessel instead.
  - The Egg Pawns defending the Hidden Base supply depot that Shadow raids are wearing samurai outfits and wielding katanas, just like the ones in Aquarium Park from Sonic Colors. Fitting since that game happens right before Generations, and Eggman's absence is due to that game's ending as well.
  - The Egg Breaker is an independent Badnik rather than a mech vehicle that Eggman pilots, just like in the IDW Comics.
- Episode 3:
  - Rouge mentions how G.U.N. was funding the research that would create Shadow the Hedgehog, as well as how they sealed him away for fifty years. She mentions that Shadow may still have some lingering vendettas against the organization, despite being frequent collaborators before. Shadow acknowledges there is no bad blood tonight, but they are just obstacles for his goal.
  - The Blue Falcon uses all of the same weaponry from its first and only appearance in Shadow the Hedgehog: a missile launcher and an area-of-effect particle beam cannon that shoots out in a circular radius wave, its blast cutting the platform Shadow stands on.

Webcomic

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja has its share of these as well. Some even link to Alt Text comments — one memorable one being the Doc's List of Things To Do Before He Died. Another being the peg-faced pirates, and Dan McNinja's 'poison eyes'another is a pact the doc has with the police in his town, mentioned here http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/3p18/ and referenced here http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/28p11/
Brawl in the Family:
- One strip in a Christmas-themed arc has King Dedede starting to go around stealing things set to a Filk Song from How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. Now, going back a year...
- Matthew acknowledges that this strip is notably darker than standard Brawl in the Family fare, but check out the Alt Text and it'll point you to this one. Then all kinds of Fridge Horror pops up.
Cirque Royale: Diana, Leo's older sister, is shown buying a Lil' Quinny doll as a child in the crowd where Penelope is talking about Quinn's popularity as a child (as the first female heir). When she's shown later with Leo when they're kids in a flashback, the doll is present next to her.
Dragon Ball Multiverse:
- The Multiverse aspect, especially for changed or alternate versions of the established DBZ cast, allows for callbacks or pokes to aspects of the series.
- The movies have been rewritten to fit within DBZ history. More irritatingly, aspects like Bardock's visions and the Tuffles were rewritten or removed from some universes.
El Goonish Shive:
- Grace's comment on The Princess Bride here is a reference to Susan's opinion of it here.
- There's a much darker one here, about why Grace thinks it's okay to lie to people for their own good. Unlike many references since the comic got commentary, there were simply too many comics to reference there for the artist to remember them all.
- The flashback where Elliot nonchalantly gave directions to a griffin set up one of these in reverse.
Gunnerkrigg Court:
- In chapter 13, Kat disagrees with Alistair about which is Prodigy's best album, then Alistair gives all his possessions to Kat before he leaves. In chapter 14, Kat is seen wearing one of Ali's T-shirts. Then in chapter 15, she wears a shirt with the XL Recordings (Prodigy's record label) logo.
- In chapter 20, Annie accidentally leaves a giant fingerprint on the moon. Whenever the moon is shown in the background in later chapters, this print is still visible.
Homestuck is filled with in-jokes and references to past events. Often they become plot-relevant, but a lot are also just there for seasoned fans to pick out and to create a more cohesive work as a whole. (Andrew Hussie once claimed that there are very few pages that don't reference at least one other.) There is an overriding plot reason for all of these, even the joke ones: circumstantial simultaneity, in which similar events happen at the same paradox space time, is a real law of the Homestuck universe. To cite one example, in Act 5 Act 1 Vriska complains to Aradia that she may as well rip her heart out of her chest with her super strong robot arm and pound away with it, because apparently it's up to her to feel emotions for the both of them. Later on, Aradia, in a robot body, does indeed rip her heart out and pound it against something. Much later in Act 6, the Autoresponder tells Jake that the brobot might as well rip its heart out of its chest with its super strong robot arm and pound away with it, because apparently it's up to the artificial intelligence to feel emotions for the both of them; later, it does indeed do this. There is absolutely no real meaning to these nods, but they're sure as hell fun to find.
The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: References to the Lint Mines of Dustworld, Bob's bottomless sock drawer, Molly wanting a pony for her birthday, the Grammar Squirrel, Molly's ridiculous fanfic crossovers (The Brothers Karamazov meet Harold and the Purple Crayon, or Gulliver vs. Mechagodzilla), etc.
Life and Death mentions the Gargle Blaster incident a few hundred pages later.
In Litterbox Comics, the Parent Quantine Bingo has one of the spaces labeled "Kid Threatens to Become a YouTuber When They Grow Up", referencing the time when Vincent refused to go to school because he wants to be a social media influencer when he grows up.
The Order of the Stick has plenty of these, acting as both tiny details and important plot pieces throughout the course of the comic. The most significant of which being an elder dragon who happens to be the mother of a young adult dragon the main characters killed over 400 strips earlier.
- "Wait a minute, I had a 22!"
- In the cast page, Haley is now holding an IOU note after she stole the diamond off the cast page.
- "You're invisible!"
- The boots that Haley wanted dyed when she bought her new armor. Remember? Those lime green Boots of Speed she found and mentioned to V way back when as what seemed like a one-off gag?
- In strip #685, Buggy Lou mentions that Belkar "was pals with one of [his] suppliers" during Lou's "stint . . . buying slaves over on the Northern Continent." This is a reference to strip #171.
  Belkar: The chick, we can sell into slavery. I know a guy who knows a guy.
- And a Lampshade Hanging in strip #683 about a reference from strip #87:
  Vaarsuvius: You are a bottomless pit of self-reference, are you not?
- Rich just outdid himself in the 703rd strip:
  Hobgoblin Mother: You clean that spill up this instant, Hobgoblin Cleric #2! I need to go change your brother, Hobgoblin Warrior from Strip #443, Panel 3.
Questionable Content:
- Strip 1707 has a continuity nod from perhaps as early as strip 270, as Jeph spontaneously decided to draw Faye, Penelope and Hannelore with their old hairstyles. The nod may be to an even earlier hairstyle, if you count when Faye wore her hair with clips in colours other than red.
- Strip 2107 has Marigold ask if Hannelore's dad's spaceship has lasers, and Hanners tells her that the government took the lasers out. Marten replies "You too, hun?" referring to a sequence beginning with strip 147, in which the government tried to impound Pintsize's chassis because it had a laser weapon, which was then removed.
- And strip 2201, in which Momo wishes she could eat cupcakes, reminds Marten that that's what happened to Pintsize's original chassis.
Something*Positive:
- The reference to "I lava you", first seen on a note read by Davan and Nancy, and later repeated in a joke between Lisa and Gaspar.
- There's also the time when Aubrey and Kestrel entered a supply closet in the Nerdrotica building, where Aubrey stored some props from her less successful escapades. She is shown picking up a Cthulu mask, a reference to an earlier plot where she attempted to film a show called "My Neighbor Cthulu."
Stand Still, Stay Silent: A newspaper article shown mid-way through Adventure II Chapter 2 includes ads for a couple businesses and a short paragraph about Mikkel's claim to have seen white clover in the Silent World. While on his own in Reykjavik in the following chapter, Lalli walks by the two advertized buisnesses and ends up staying in a hotel whose name translates to "white clover" in Icelandic.
This Domain Is Irrelevant frequently makes use of this, frequently bringing up often inconsequential side points from older comics and twisting their meaning and often connecting them to all kinds of other events. Recently it has been revealed that this is all the machination of The Illuminati of which Steve Jobs is a member.
Unwinder's Tall Comics has a lot of these, sometimes resulting in Continuity Creep. For example, this comic references at least 5 different earlier strips.
VG Cats: In the Bleach parody, Leo draws his Rat-Flail (an item he tried to make in a poor attempt at a D&D game by tying a rat to a stick) and then turns it into an gigantic living Rat-Morningstar.
Triquetra Cats, which officially takes place in a probable alternate future of The Wotch, makes many of these. A short list includes the were creature jewel Wolfie and Katie use, (officially named in this timeline as the Samantha Stone, a reference to Samantha 'Wolfie' Wolfe) a descendant of Cassie Sinclaire named Circe, flashback panels showing Anne fighting Xaos, plus the plant that Cassie gives the love potion to is seen in a guest strip done by the Triquetra Cats team, this was later given a return nod in the Wotch where Glock mentions that "we need a full time force of people with expertise in mystical and scientific know how, and field agents prepped to deal with uncanny dangers, and entire SERVICE prepped to confront issues the public doesn't even believe in" in Triquetra Cats SERVICE is the name of the MIB type organization the main characters work for.
xkcd:
- The Alt Text on comic 576, where Cueball signs up for a random mail order list, is "The hell? Who mails a bobcat?" Comic 325 has Black Hat Guy mail a bobcat just to screw with people.
- The super soaker ends up reappearing a while later.
  "Man, I forgot that was there."
- Another Alt Text nod from xkcd: Alt Text in #616 referencing #150. There's also an Alt Text reference to the elliptical reflector dish.
Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal (2022): Ziggy Pig has a photo in his apartment of him and Silly Seal posing with Doctor Doom. This is a reference to the 2018 Ziggy Pig - Silly Seal Comics one-shot, where it was established that Doom is a major fan of the duo.
Zokusho Comics: Rotting Johnny assassinates a mage who was throwing around some powerful destructive magics. In a later issue, the Wayward Cross gets hired in place of the the mage to take out a group of goblins that have taken over a fort. At the end of that, one of the things they came to get from the fort is taken by the people who hired the Wayward Cross, so there may be further implications.

Web Original

Entirely Presenting You: There's a lot throughout the series, but the most notable one is in the first arc, where the first and last chapter mirror each other in both events and writing.
The Green Wanderer (which is set in the same universe as Smirvlak's Stone) has a small line from Mulvernt where he mentions he gave two goblins and a stilio a ride to a castle. Said goblins and stilio were Nick, Gnek, and Stilyk, the main characters from Smirvlak's Stone.
Tails of the Bounty Hunter has a short moment in chapter 8 where Yordin mentions "the Universal Gardens Massacre" that happened several years ago. Said massacre and the events leading up to it are shown in full detail in Tails of Fame.
TV Tropes: For a long time, the page image for Affably Evil was a photo of the (Human) Mayor of Sunnydale from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After it was changed to a different picture of him, the caption was updated accordingly, continuing directly from the previous one.
Old Caption: The Mayor of Sunnydale. Jovial. Fatherly. Wants to be a giant snake demon.
New Caption: The former mayor of Sunnydale. Jovial. Fatherly. Got his wish to be a giant snake demon, and is feeling peachy-keen!

Web Videos

Atop the Fourth Wall: The Movie: Linkara plans to review BloodGunn #1 at the beginning of the movie, a hypothetical superhero that '90s Kid often referred to during the course of the show.
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
- In the second video, there is a line that clearly sets up a rhyme in "green", but Tony uses "brown" instead. Why? Because, of course, green is not a creative colour.
- Yellow Guy's clown painting (Still ruined by black paint) appears in the sequel to the original video, and yet again in the fourth video.
- The craft that Yellow Guy made in the first video appears in the third.
- In episode 2, the students meet a talking clock named Tony who teaches them about time... and causes them to age so rapidly their bodies rot away. In episode 4, when Colin the Computer brags about being able to tell time, Duck Guy looks at the camera with concern as he says "Time?!" In episode 6, Yellow Guy is horrified when Tony briefly appears again, telling him "You made me die!"
I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC: One episode features Batman and Iron Man trading barbs about each other's movies. At the end, Batman proclaimed that Iron Man has herpes. After a year, Jonah Hex and Iron Man were trading barbs about each other's movies.
Jonah: * cough* Herpes * cough*
Iron Man: What?!
Matthew Santoro: 20 Ways to Lose Your Man Card lists 20 ways to lose one's man card, a symbolic representation of one's manliness. In a later video, Mail with Matt #3, Matt gets sent a physical man card from a fan in the mail. Matt is quick to explain the continuity nod to the audience.
Nazo no Eizou - CM Channel: Due to the nature of the series, later videos referencing earlier ones reveal more details about the alternate-Japanese folk's situation worsening over time or revealing details left unknown in later videos.
- The "Recycling Center Daruma" shown in "Speed-Eating Contest Notice", reported stolen by a 42-year-old unemployed man named Masahiro Yasuda, is the same Daruma doll shown in "Catalog", fashioned from a six-year-old boy named Hiroki Yasuda. Therefore, this implies that the thief was Hiroki's father and tried to steal him back out of regret for selling him to the Tokyo Child-Recycling Center earlier on.
- One of the drawings shown in "Petting Festival" is of a crying mouse being eaten alive by maggots, titled "I Won't Forgive You for Breaking my Amulet" and drawn by Nosoka Hayasumi^note林寸のそか, the victimized girl from "Bullying Report of the Month". This in turn reveals that the girl's bully, Harume Nebata, was executed and reincarnated into the mouse in question as penalty.
- "Your Town's TV Bulletin Board 1" is a bulletin from the Tokyo Special Ward about Mr. Kamiki's letter to Kōbe-kun's mother gloating about how he bullied the poor kid into suicide since childhood and rubs in that he's Happily Married with a kid. However, it also ties to "Mysterious Prints Posted in Arakawa Ward", which concerns posters with hateful messages under the picture of a man with a wife and child. In other words, Kamiki's sordid bullying of Kōbe-kun was already known and made him a pariah among his community, but his life is still decent enough to write the accursed letter in the first place.
- "Surnames that Disappeared Today" is a notice from the Tokyo Special Ward about Japanese surnames that became defunct after the death of their last holder. Among them, there are surnames that belong to characters from previous videos, such as "Towada"^note, "Sakuma"^note, "Yomota"^note, "Iwabuchi"^noteKanaho Iwabuchi from "Catalog", "Kōbe"^notefrom "Your Town's TV Bulletin Board 1", "Konomi"^note "Kagaki"^noteYuto Kagaki from "Reincarnation", "Ohtsu"^note, "Yanagisawa"^note before cutting to the factory, giving the sinister implication that they were the only children and the last members of their families, or killed their own offspring.
- "Aliens are Coming!" and "Please Call Immediately" both reference "To All Participants", a notice directed to participants on a Deadly Game. The former starts with an announcement of the game's winner, a little girl named Shioe Masamoto, while the latter is a notice from the Tokyo Child-Recycling Center that requests viewers to call the authorities on the man targeted in the called-back ad for uploading videos that "disrupted daily life".
- "Long-Term Part-Time Job Application" and "Safety Confirmations for Senzoku Girls' High School on a Learning Trip" both revolve around the same breeding factory. The latter implies that the factory dropped its requirement of fertile young women aged 18-25 and started to take in high-school girls.
- "Closing Notice" starts with a PSA from the Tokyo Special Ward warning not to litter babies on toilets or lockers, making a reference to both "toilet" and "cradle". The notice proper namedrops Senzoku Girls' High while reporting the "Baby Factory" has been closed, telling the girls victimized by the factory to deal with the problem themselves since "they're adults now".
- "Login Successful" has the user enter the Metropolitan Citrus Center's website and orders the organs of a little girl named Maruhi Ohtsu, who was the sacrificed girl from "Election Count Report". Knowing the latter ad has an announcement from the MCC in which they announce Ohtsu's farewell gift-giving party that culminates in "soul removal", it gives the sinister implication that the Citrus Center tampered with the sacrifice ballot to make sure Ohtsu won and they could extract her organs.
Party Crashers:
- In "There's no way Mario Party can be any more TOXIC...", when Vernias wins What Goes Up, Nick and Brent question why he clutched up on the minigame for 10 in-game coins but not in "the $500 Mario Party Tournament" when the prize was $500 IRL dollars.
- In "Mario Party 6 is an EVIL Game", Sophist sarcastically tells Nick that landing on Blue Spaces and Red Spaces indicates what type of minigame is played, referencing when Nick somehow never knew that in "Mario Party but we can't be TOXIC".
- In their Super Mario 3D World playthrough, Nick calls the Boos "master baiters" upon getting tricked by a fake exit, referencing when Vernias unintentionally called himself that in this short.
- In "Mario Party but 3rd Place CONTROLS US", Brent (while imitating Nick) says that the key going into the gate must feel so good for the gate, referencing when Nick said a similar thing in "We uncovered a BROKEN Mario Party loophole...".
- In "This Mario Party 8 space CHEATS", when Nick gets a free Star from Donkey Kong, putting him in 1st place, Sophist asks Brent and Vernias if they want to flip off Nick again, similar to how they ended "How to Cheat in Mario Party".
- While playing Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine in "STOP LAUGHING", Brent references his previous uses of the game's sprites in his Mario Party videos, specifically Sophist struggling on Rakin' 'em In from "Mario Party 2 is more TOXIC than I remember....", Vernias being yelled at in quite a few videos, and Brent saying that Space Land sucks in "Least Toxic Mario Party game...".
- In "Smash but you can only play 1 color scheme", while Vernias is playing as Chrom, Nick recalls when Vernias claimed that Chrom had "drip" in "Play a character with DRIP".
Scott The Woz: "Tears of the Kingdom Isn't Perfect" begins with Scott showing the viewer what he claims to be his early Halloween costume: a white shirt with "Scott's Opinions" written on it. Fast-forward to the Halloween Episode "Candy Games" and that is exactly what Scott's costume is.
Skawo: In the first episode of Color Splash, they said that it was both the first LP on the system, and probably the last game, since the Wii U had already died. In every other Wii U LP (which are always virtual console games), this is referenced in the first episode.
World's Greatest Adventures: Episode 15 mentions the Aztec Pinecone of Gold from Episode 3, and Episode 23 brings back the sets of Episode 15, Episode 16 and Episode 22.

Real Life

In international diplomacy, it's customary for world leaders, when visiting another country, to make references to long-forgotten ties between their nation and the host country. For instance, when visiting Morocco, US Presidents will usually make reference to the fact that in 1777, Morocco was the first nation to recognize America's independence from Britain.
In 1890, the Turkish frigate Ertuğrul sank off the coast of Wakayama, Japan, after having an audience with Emperor Meiji. The surviving sailors were taken back to Istanbul by two Japanese frigates. In 1985, Turkey sent frigates to rescue 215 Japanese nationals who were living in Tehran at the time and endangered by the effects of the Iran-Iraq war. A statement released by the Turkish government mentioned it as returning the favor from 1890.
In 1986, the Greater London Council, led by Ken Livingstone, was disbanded by the Thatcher government and power was devolved to the local boroughs. In 2000, the Greater London Authority was formed, and the first elected Mayor of London was the same Ken Livingstone. He started his victory speech by saying, "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted fourteen years ago..."
On the final ball of a 2005 Twenty20 cricket international between Australia and New Zealand, Australian bowler Glenn McGrath pretended to deliver an underarm ball to NZ's Kyle Mills. Umpire Billy Bowden (from NZ) responded by showing McGrath a mock red card. The incident was a Shout-Out to the notorious 1981 underarm bowling incident, in which Aussie captain Greg Chappell called for his brother Trevor to roll the ball along the ground to prevent NZ from hitting a six that would have won the match. McGrath's practical joke was much more favourably received by the crowd, since Australia had an unbeatable 44-run lead.

Continuity Nod
27 Following

Example subpages:

Other examples:

Video Example(s):

Zavok vs. Dr. Eggman

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Zavok vs. Dr. Eggman

Continuity Nod 27 Following

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Zavok vs. Dr. Eggman

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Index

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Zavok vs. Dr. Eggman

Continuity Nod
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